I Want to Tell You a Story

I have a childhood memory, which until recently has been hidden away in the recess of my mind. I would have been very small, not long out of the pram, unable to read yet. One day, we visited some distant relatives- my mum’s cousin’s daughter’s cousin (or something) There was another little girl, the same age as me. I picked up a book and ran after my little fifth cousin twice removed shouting :

“I WANT TO TELL YOU A STORY!”

Unable to read, I remember deciding to make the story up as I went along and pretend that it was in the book. I didn’t even get to make the story up… Childhood memories are funny things, this one has stuck in my mind because of what followed,

“I WANT TO TELL YOU A STORY!”

I shouted and screamed several (hundred) times. There were tears and tantrums, the other little girl simply did not want to listen… and she was crying too by now. My mummy and daddy, and all the other adults in the room were laughing at us. Picture the scene:

“I WANT TO TELL YOU A STORY!” (me)

“NOOOOO!” (little girl)

Was this my first rejection?

This happened thirty-eight years ago. Today, I received a return through the post of a short story I wrote about hydrotherapy. I hope it didn’t make the editor cry! It is important not to look at returns as a straightforward ‘rejection’ they just didn’t want it for their magazine.

This is how I look at it : When you go clothes shopping, you can’t buy all the dresses in the shop, you have to ‘decline’ some of them. This doesn’t mean there is something wrong with the remaining dresses, some of them simply won’t fit. I will now re-write this story in my own style for my short story collection. I also received an e-mail today, to tell me that my ‘success story’ is going to be included in the Bury Adult Learning Prospectus for spring/summer 2017. Swings and roundabouts!